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Book Review

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NIRVANA.


By Rune Johansson.
(Allen and Unwin. 35s.).

Review by J. C. COOPER.

Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 4, No. 2. (Spring, 1970) World Wisdom, Inc.
www.studiesincomparativereligion.com

While Professor Johansson agrees with de la Valle Poussin that too much has been
written about Nirvana, he maintains that this "too much" is also too superficial and based
on inadequate investigation and, therefore, he sets out to "collect and describe all the
evidence as objectively as possible", without forcing any extraneous explanations upon it,
though, admittedly, approaching it from a mainly psychological viewpoint. This he
justifies by the fact that the Pali Nikayas are rich in psychological terminology and
analyses, and, since all serious study should be helpful, psychology should contribute its
share. He states at the outset that his methods are "psychological and semantic, rather than
historical and philosophical".
The investigation is limited to the five Nikayas; to understanding and establishing
them as a comprehensive whole, and to studying the question whether Nirvana is a
psychological, ethical, or metaphysical state, or a combination of them all. Groups of
verbs are taken from the Nikayas to show that Nirvana "can be an object of knowledge
and vision, feelings, desire, approach, acquisition and production". A distinction is made
between emotions and feelings; the latter are defined as "the experiences of pleasure or
discomfort that normally accompany our perceptions and other conscious processes".
These may become strong under pressure, but emotion is "a state of imbalance such as
anger, hate, fear, anxiety, elation and love", so that the state of the arahant is one of calm
in which feelings are experienced without emotional reaction. Although Nirvana is a state
of freedom from needs, emotions and all sensuality, it is also a state brought about by
transformation of citta, "the core of personality", defined as a combination of mind and
personality, the change taking place through practical and intellectual effort,a causal
process.
The author queries a later trend in Buddhism to define Nirvana as a metaphysical state
transcending time, space and causality, "a supra-mundane reality, with independent
existence", attained by merging into this reality, and suggests that the terms ajatam,
amatam, akatam, asankhatam, usually translated "unborn, deathless, unmade,
uncompounded", are more correctly rendered "freedom from birth, freedom from death,
freedom from creation, freedom from putting together". If this were correct it would "set
us back to the personal plane with which discussions of Nirvana are usually concerned".

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